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A Mexican parliament committee on Sunday urged the government to take emergency measures to ensure food supplies and stocks during the United States-led war on Iraq, which began on Wednesday night.
In a report, the committee, responsible for the rural development, expressed its worry that the war could lead to a grain shortage in the Latin American country, whose grain consumption has been heavily dependent on imports from the neighboring United States for years.
Tighter border controls after the outbreak of the war would delay the arrival of US grain imports. The war could also lead to a reduction in the US export, the report said.
Mexico purchased about US$4.2 billion worth of grain from the United States each year since the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect in 1994, an annual increase of
US$1.3 billion in volume compared to the pre-NAFTA period. Last year, the country, well known for being abundant in corn, spent US$840 million on buying US corn to meet the domestic demand.
A recent report from the US Department of Agriculture said the corn, wheat, rice and beans Mexico imported last year from the United States exceeded US$2 billion, and predicted that the import would double this year.
(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2003)
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